Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1897 — Love and Genius. [ARTICLE]

Love and Genius.

Mftny men of genius have undoubtedly believed, with Thackeray, that It is better to love foolishly than not at all; that they practiced this philosophy la proved by their memoirs and biographies. Hunt loved a good girl whose spelling was unconventional, and whose chlrography could not be called her chief accomplishment. Keats was wildly, madly In love with a commonplace girl named Fanny Browne. He married her, but she was Incapable of appreciating him. Hnzlltt, the brilliant essayist, loved the pert, coarse daughter of his landlady. He wrote her a letter which she never answered, and he said that “the rolling years of eternity would not fill up the blank that her failure to answer that letter caused.” A practical Scotch girt, Charlotte Carpenter, won Walter Scott’s love. She not only hated literature, but objected to writing to him. He wrote her saying: “You must write me once a week.” She replied: “You are quite out of your senses, and you need not put In so many ‘musts’ In your letters. It is beginning too early." Walter was foolishly In love with Lady Dorothea Sydney, who was his “Saccharlssa.” She liked his love making In poetry, but when he proposed marriage In prose, the idea did not appeal to her. Alfred de Mueaet’e love for the Irra, sponslve George Sand gave his thoughts such an extraordinary elevation that he “wrote many brilliant poems In consequence. Thomson had his Amanda and Littleton Jiis Nannie. Chaucer sang the praises of many queens, but his one great love was Philllppa Picard de Rouet, the lady in waiting to Queen Anne of Bohemia. He waited nine years to marry her, but made It a matter of complaint In several poems. Moore lived up to bls theory that love’s young dream Is the sweetest thing In life. He never let one love get old before he supplanted It with a new. Carey bad his Sally of "Sally in Our Alley" fame. Surrey loved Geraldine from tbe time she was a child in short dresses. Corneille, the astute lawyer, fell in love and became the brilliant dramatic poet. Thus it seems that love, whether successful or otherwise, for a time inspires its votaries.